


This is Not a Research Mission

by Marzarelo



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cecaelias, Other, aquatic alien, mermaid au, octo-Kylo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 15:56:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9769319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marzarelo/pseuds/Marzarelo
Summary: The First Order is on a search to find a planet suitable to convert into their awesome super weapon.  This planet doesn't suit their purposes, but it proves memorable to General Hux for other reasons when they capture a sentient aquatic creature while drilling for samples in the sea.Or:  Kylo Ren is an Ursula-style half-octopus mer-person and this is a short ficlet about that.This is a ficlet inspired by a piece of fan art an awesome friend drew for me as a reward for being a responsible adult. 83 83





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, my friend [Moony](http://themoonrulznny.tumblr.com/) drew [this for me](https://twitter.com/themoonrulznny/status/831531738941751298) after bribing me with the offer to draw a sketch for me if I finished all the crappy responsible chores I was procrastinating over. I loved it so much I wanted to write a little something to go along with it. ~ ♥ ♥ ♥
> 
> I haven't published fic in years, so please be gentle. TwT

Hux felt his lip curl into a sneer as he watched footage of an entire squadron of stormtroopers wrestling what appeared to be a heap of glistening, black tentacles into a transport.  "What in all the hells  _is_  it?“

"Reports from our anthropologist scouts mention the natives talking about beings in the deepest part of the oceans.  They translated it as ‘Sea Warriors’ or some nonsense like that.  From the way they spoke we assumed they were mythical, but this fits their description so apparently not.”  Phasma replied flatly as Hux played back the footage again, his eyes narrowing as he took in more details.

For a brief moment he glimpsed what appeared to be a pale humanoid torso carried between the two troopers at the front of the group.  Gods, was this all  _one creature?_  “Is it sentient?”

“We believe so.  It was armed with this,” Phasma held out what appeared to be a metal staff with a short, slightly curved bar across one end which had three round ports, one on each end and one in the center.  When Hux simply raised a questioning eyebrow, she pressed something on the side and a beam of crackling energy erupted from each port, revealing it to be some sort of energy-trident.  "It killed 18 troopers before we were able to knock it out with a concussive grenade.“

”'Knock it out?’  You mean it’s  _still alive_ after that?“  Hux looked at the footage again with renewed interest.  Those grenades were designed to kill anything in the water within 30 meters.

"Yes, sir.  It’s even regained consciousness, though we have it contained.”  Another window opened on the main viewscreen to show a cylindrical containment unit filled with water.  

The creature inside was a blur of motion, darting restlessly from the top of the cylinder to the bottom and back again, somehow turning smoothly at each end despite the fact that the unit seemed too narrow to properly accommodate it.  It lashed out violently at any trooper who passed too close and the troopers, surprisingly, were flinching away from its little outbursts.  "Why are they cowering away from it?  It’s not like it can get out.  They should be better trained than that.“

If Phasma was offended at the implication that her troops were poorly trained, she didn’t let on.  But then, her helmet did seem to modulate any tone from her voice.  "The medics who treated the few survivors from its attack are saying it has some sort of psychic feedback.  It projects fear into its enemies.”

“How useful.”  Hux mused, watching the creature’s frantic movements with fascination.  "Have everyone stay well clear of it for now, then.  I’ll decide what to do with it later.  In the meantime, keep drilling.  I want all the samples we need to determine this planet’s suitability collected by the end of the day cycle.“  He barely waited for Phasma to acknowledge the order before retreating to his office.  There were hundreds of sample analyses already waiting for his review, and he had no time to waste.

~

Hours crept by, and as much as he tried to keep his focus on his work, Hux’s thoughts kept drifting to the wild and restless alien contained in an empty cargo bay several decks below his feet.  He still completed his reports ahead of schedule, he was still highly efficient even if he was mildly distracted, but he couldn’t stop himself  from pulling up the live feed from the cargo bay.  Only checking that this strange prisoner was still secure, of course.

As the day progressed, the creature’s movements grew slower as it likely wore itself out.  By the end of the day cycle it had settled on the bottom of the containment unit, scarcely moving at all except for an occasional fluid squirming of its lower extremities to reposition themselves in the tight space.  After it had been still for nearly half an hour Hux began to wonder if it was sleeping, or if it might have spontaneously died as aquatic lifeforms occasionally seemed to do in captivity.  Some time later, when he realized he’d been staring at live feed of a motionless alien for the past 20 minutes since he submitted his last report, he decided it couldn’t hurt to see it in person.  If only to find out whether or not it was still alive.

The cargo bay was lit only by the dim night cycle lighting, but it was more than enough to make out the massive cylinder in the center of the room, and it’s sole occupant.  It looked harmless enough, its many strange tentacle-legs all squashed into the bottom of the containment cylinder in a wadded mass with its humanoid upper body sitting upright among them, starkly pale in contrast.  Its head was bowed, a mess of inky black hair falling forward to obscure its face and fluttering slowly in the current of the the water circulation pump.  Its arms hung limply at its sides with its hands curled loosely in what Hux supposed would be considered its lap.  It looked male, judging by the broad shoulders and musculature, but it was always hard to say without having seen any other members of the species for comparison.  If it wasn’t sleeping or dead, then its posture said it had positively given up all hope.

Although Hux thought he kept his approach quiet, the creature must have sensed something because it looked up sharply when he was barely two steps through the doorway, and a look of shock crossed it’s face.  Hux felt surprise and something strangely like recognition flit across his own mind, but it seemed somehow disconnected from him, like they originated from somewhere else and reached his mind as something like an echo.  This, he supposed, was probably what they meant by "psychic feedback.”  Apparently it was more than just projecting fear into enemies.  Maybe this was how this species communicated.  The closer he got, the stronger the “feedback” seemed to be, and soon he was able to discern that it wasn’t any sort of specific recognition he was picking up from the creature, but shock that Hux’s facial features looked so similar those of its own species.  Studying the creature’s face, still intermittently obscured by wild bits of floating hair, he could understand the surprise.  From the waist up this creature could be mistaken for completely human, unlike the unfortunate-looking creatures that occupied the planet’s land masses.  Thinking back he realized it probably hadn’t seen any humans other than stormtroopers, so of course his own face was the first human face it had seen.

Now that he was actually viewing the creature in person, he couldn’t help but recognize the unusual beauty of it.  He’d always associated beauty with things that were soft and fragile, but this alien being was anything but.  The massive tentacle limbs that comprised the lower half of its body were each thicker than his own waist, but their fluid, rippling movements graceful and almost hypnotic.  The humanoid portion of its body was more broad and powerfully muscled than any human man he’d seen outside of a pornographic holofilm, the pale skin dappled sparsely with small dark spots.  Its skin was marred with drastic-looking scars in several places, the largest one running diagonally across its face to its jaw and biting deep into its shoulder, probably marking him as a survivor some great and bloody battle.  Or a few run-ins with a motor boat, but considering the depth at which it had been encountered, maybe that wasn’t likely.  It’s face was unusual, but the odd combination of features came together in a strangely captivating way.

He made the mistake of looking into its eyes.  They were terrible, expressive things.  The weight of fear and despair in its gaze seemed to pull him forward until he was fully face-to-face with the creature, his hand pressed to the surface of the glass.  It leaned closer, pressing its hand opposite his as its emotions slowly seeped into his own mind.  

Empathy wasn’t something that had never come naturally to Hux anyway, and having someone else’s emotions suddenly forced on him was a devastating shock.  And he had never felt anything as desperate and overwhelming as this.  Need to escape, longing for wide open space, despair at the thought of living out the rest of  a lifetime in a terrible small space, and an all-encompassing fear of dying here.  Not a fear of  _death,_ specifically, but fear of being killed as a helpless prisoner, or dying of disease and malnutrition like a poorly kept pet, or dissected and studied as a scientific curiosity.  As Hux stood, staring into this beautiful being’s eyes, he realized he couldn’t bear the thought of it dying in any of those ways, either.

~

“Excuse me, General?”  The oceanic research specialist looked somewhat distraught, but Hux just turned a cold glare on him until he shrunk back nervously.

“You heard me.  This planet doesn’t suit our purposes, and that creature is of no use to us, so dump it back in the ocean where you found it and we’ll carry on to the next planet.”  He hated repeating himself.  And he particularly hated subordinates who looked at him like maybe he wasn’t making decisions for purely rational, non-merciful reasons.

“But the research team thinks we could benefit from studying it.  We request permission to at least dissect it to learn-”

The blood drained from Hux’s face, and he quickly cut the researcher off.  " _This is not a scientific research mission!_   We are  _not_ out here to  _explore strange new worlds and_   _seek out new life!_   Our task is to find  _one particular planet_  to fulfill  _one specific purpose_ , and I won’t have our research team distracted from that task!  Release the creature  _immediately_ , and anyone who hesitates to follow this order will be sent to reconditioning.  Do I make myself clear?“  He let out a slow breath when the researcher scrambled to obey the order and glared at his retreating back.  He made a mental note to have that man sent to reconditioning, regardless.  Just for questioning him, and for no other reason than that.

He watched the feed of the creature being released on his datapad, purely to ensure that his orders were followed, and he felt a strange tightness in his chest release when it disappeared into the choppy waves.  They moved on to the next planet, continuing their search for a suitable planet to transform into their super weapon.  Hux opened the files on his datapad and proceeded to delete all information on the previous planet to free up space on the drive, but when he got to the video files regarding the alien, he hesitated.  This was the only existing footage of this species, he reasoned, so he kept it, along with the planet’s coordinates.  It was the responsible thing to do.

In the following years, he did  _not_  think about the creature again.  He certainly didn’t review the footage on nights when its face haunted his thoughts.  And he never studied those coordinates and found himself longing to go back.

~

Hux had entered the first coordinates that popped into his head as he fled from the rapidly crumbling command center.  He knew the blame for this failure would fall squarely on his shoulders, and he was not going to hang around and wait for Snoke to order his execution.  If the "Supreme Leader” wanted him executed, he would have to find him first.  With any luck, it would be assumed that he didn’t survive Starkiller’s destruction.  The transport shuddered violently as he took off, just barely clearing the atmosphere as the core erupted.  A hail of debris rattled across the hull just as he slammed on the hyperdrive, then he sat back in the pilot’s seat to let the horror of the past half-hour wash over him.  His career was over.  He was a fugitive from his own people now if only because he’d  _run_  just now instead of crawling back to Snoke to await punishment.  Instead of the panic he expected, a numbness settled over him as he stared out at the stars streaking past.

The panic didn’t actually set in until he disengaged the hyperdrive and the alarms sounded.  Apparently the ship had sustained more damage than he’d realized and exiting hyperspace was the last straw needed to snap something loose to send him hurtling straight for the planet he had definitely not been hoping to return to at any point ever.  He struggled fruitlessly with the controls, but all he managed to do was marginally slow his descent.  So at least maybe he won’t die instantly on impact.  That might have been some relief if he weren’t heading straight for the ocean, so really it just meant he’d likely drown, a much less instant-and-painless sort of death.  Fantastic.

Impact restraints kept him in his seat when he hit the water, but a storage compartment popped open, scattering it’s contents over him and something hard and heavy struck him in the back of the head.  He was only conscious long enough to notice water pouring into the cockpit and think maybe he wouldn’t be conscious to be aware of drowning after all before his world went black.

Waking up staring into a blue sky and a blinding sun was absolutely the last thing he expected.  He struggled to sit up and take in his surroundings, but it was hard to notice anything beyond the sting of salt and sand on his now sunburned face, the stifling heat of his heavy black clothes soaked with a mix of sweat and seawater, and the gritty feel of sand in every conceivable place on his body.  He fumbled to strip down to his thin undershirt so he wouldn’t die of heat stroke, crawled a short distance to the shade of a stone cliff and lay back in the sand until the rising waves of nausea passed and the static creeping into the edges of his vision faded, then he slowly sat up and made a second attempt to evaluate his situation.  Some of the ration packs and first aid supplies from the transport were scattered next to where he’d woken up.  Maybe he’d washed ashore?  But how could he have gotten out of the restraints?  Out of the ship?  He struggled to his feet and went to gather up the supplies before they could be washed away by the tide, and as he did he noticed something glinting at the edge of the waves.  When bent to inspect it, his heart fluttered.  That was  _definitely_ not on the transport shuttle.

He bent down to retrieve the object, it was heavier than he’d expected, and let the next wave rinse the sand off of it before lifting it.  He found a round button on the side of the staff and pressed it, activating the three crackling energy prongs.  Surely this hadn’t been abandoned.  Whoever left it couldn’t have gone far.

He deactivated the weapon and carried it over to the shade of the cliff along with his meager belongings, and sat watching the water for the return of the trident’s owner.


End file.
